Campaign for lost doll finds happy ending in Windsor

Three-year-old Addison Drake doesn't know of the six-week, extensive social media campaign that had Facebook users around the world trying to reunite a little girl with her lost doll.

Sharon Hill, Windsor Star

Updated: August 31, 2015

Addison Drake, 3, lost her doll Little Addison on the way to the Mackinac island ferry in mid-July. The Arnold Mackinac Island Ferry system posted pictures of the lost doll they dubbed Dolly on social media during the last six weeks and mom Meg Drake saw the story that is making the rounds on Facebook Sunday. Her daughter will be reunited with her doll Friday and has a new playhouse waiting for her doll. (JASON KRYK/The Windsor Star)

Three-year-old Addison Drake doesn’t know of the six-week, extensive social media campaign that had Facebook users around the world trying to reunite a little girl with her lost doll.

She just knows her doll is coming home.

“What is she doing there?” the Windsor girl asked her mom Meg Drake who only discovered Sunday the online pictures of the doll and stories of the search by the Arnold Mackinac Island Ferry. “She belongs at home. She belongs in my home.”

Little Addison, a doll bought at Chapters to be a travel buddy for the then two-year-old, went missing around Mackinac Island in mid-July before the Drake family boarded the ferry. A shuttle driver found the doll in a parking lot. The search was on to find this lost Dolly’s home.

marketing manager Heather Tamlyn said the first Facebook post was shared by more than 12,000 people and was estimated to have been viewed by more than one million people. She’s lost count of the links and media coverage for the campaign that used

and #DollysMIadventure. There were numerous offers to adopt her and after six weeks Tamlyn was beginning to worry if there would be a reunion.

Addison, 3, with her doll, Little Addison, before she lost it at Macinac Island, Mich. (Courtesy of Arnold Mackinac Ferry)

“I think everyone either knows someone or has a child that have an attachment to whether it was a blanket or stuffed animal or whether it was their own, we all have that thing that we are attached to and know how heartbreaking it would be to lose it,” Tamlyn said Monday.

Tamlyn is driving the doll to Windsor on Friday and Addison is eager to show her new playhouse to her Little Addison. For the Drakes, it saves them from a big lie.

No one noticed the blond-haired travel buddy who had already been to Chicago and back was missing until the family of three packed for the return ferry ride. The Drakes told their daughter Little Addison was going to stay on vacation for a while and then distracted her every time she asked.

What a vacation the doll –dubbed Dolly– had. She hung out with Miss Michigan and spent a day with the Mackinac Island police and marine rescue crew. She can be seen in more than 70 photos touring the island which include Dolly slicing fudge, Dolly going horseback riding and Dolly waiting for a pedicure.

“The best part of the story that amazes me is she actually did stay on vacation. Now Addison’s going to believe everything we tell her,” her mom Meg joked Monday.

Meg, a nurse, isn’t a regular Facebook user. She’s still in shock by the story that reminds her there are still amazingly kind people in the world.

“They found a little girl’s doll and then understood how much a little girl is going to miss her doll and that they went to these extreme lengths to make sure this doll’s getting home and to make it interesting so that people definitely share it.”

The doll became somewhat of a mascot for the island in northern Michigan that gets a million tourists a year.

Alison Abraham, the assistant director of Mackinac Island Tourism, said the ferry system let the island take care of Dolly for a few days where she had so many pictures taken and posted, she became recognizable.

People have recommended the island find a mascot for next year, Abraham said. “We will miss her.”

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